A few weeks ago, I was gifted a Golden Bird harmonica from my teacher, Todd Parrott. What made it really special was that it featured his signature tuning, which had the 7 draw tuned a half step down. It was my first experience with an alternate tuned harmonica. I find it really useful if you want to play the minor pentatonic scale without having to need the 6 overblow on a standard richter tuned harp. You can still make these overblow and overdraw to make the missing notes like in this video right here.
@KeroroRinChou , I think in some ways, depending on your goals, being a raw beginner is an advantage when exploring alternate tunings.
I imagine it would be harder to appreciate them once you’re used to standard tuning. I’d certainly have a lot of trouble if 2 or more guitar strings were tuned flatter or sharper than usual.
It’s something that interests me a lot.
With the crowd I’ve always hung around with, me trying to become a traditional blues harp player would be redundant.
I need the techniques, but I have different goals, and want to find the tunings that let me play more instinctively.
Yeah I’ve been playing guitar for even longer than harmonica, and at this point, after decades, I’m comfortable playing in Drop D, Open G tuning DGDGBD, open Gm tuning DGDGBbD, open E tuning EBEG#BE, open C tuning CGCGCE… It didn’t.happen overnight.
Similarly, on the harmonica I’m comfy with Melody Maker, Natural Minor, Harmonica Minor, and I’m starting to get comfy with Wilde Rock Tuning.
I want to tune one of my harps to contry tuning which is only -5 sharp, so that you can play major scale in 2nd position - but whereas the the Lee Oskar Melody Maker you play 3 for the major 2nd interval, I rather enjoy the expressiveness of the -3". So wanting to explore this for songs like Over the Rainbow and Georgia on My Mind.
Other than that, @KeroroRinChou I also want to tune one of my harps to Parrot tuning! Really looking forward to checking that out.
I’m not necessarily a beginner, I’m basically pro-experimental. Even though I play a bit like Terry McMillan, I like to experiment with my harps and see what kind of sounds they over like with different tunings and such.
Despite the inactivity of this topic, I hope I will get some feedback.
I am working on developing a natural minor-tuned harmonica configuration, which takes the PowerDraw/PowerBender and the Wilde Tunings as examples.
My preferences are:
Draw bends at each hole
No change in breathing pattern at hole 7.
Keeping the standard blow and draw chords (like standard Richter and natural minor tunings)
Avoiding note duplications if possible
I played a lot with the configuration, but of course, there is no perfect solution. I always have to sacrifice something to achieve my objectives.
Below is an example of a modified D harp. The first configuration is my new “standard” tuning, while the second one is the natural minor (Am) version of it (flattened F# and C#). Holes 1-6 are not modified (like PowerDraw). The only modification is duplicating the 6-blow note (A) to reverse the breathing pattern. This is similar to Wilde Tunings. This is the duplication that I wanted to avoid, but to achieve my goals, I was not able.
So basically, holes 7 – 10 are the same as 3 – 6, just one octave higher.
I have 3 lucky 13 power benders ( one Amazon sent me by accident absolutely free!) the only down side is the rattle of the plates caused by the central pillar or stanchion that divides the cover plates from the reed plates. I fixed that by inserting tiny slivers of card board and super gluing those to the stanchion, then going over that with a black sharpie then for water proofing using modeling varnish to water proof the cardboard ( which I took from the actual box it came in and trimmed down,I used the sharpie to hide the cut marks) that stopped the rattle, the wind savers are not great they buzz when you blow the lower notes, so I removed them and I also gapped the harp, but to be fair there was not much to be done. These are now great harps and they are really fun to play they are mellow sounding excellent for playing Sonny Boy Williamson II stuff, I’d learned bye bye bird just before I got my cold waiting for it to go, so I can carry on with it.
